Shipwrecks Video in the Lake Union Virtual Museum
The bottom of Lake Union is a virtual underwater museum of Seattle’s maritime heritage. Many of us drive, run, or bike around the lake, or spend time on the lake’s surface in watercraft. But have you ever wondered what’s at the bottom of the lake? With the help of volunteer divers, marine archaeologists, government agencies and maritime businesses, The Center for Wooden Boats has been exploring the wrecks of boats and ships ranging from a 19th century tug boat to a World War II submarine chaser at the bottom of the lake. Vaun Raymond, creator of the Lake Union Virtual Museum, shares the project through a video he’s created with the support of 4Culture.
Watch the video and explore the virtual museum.
Restoring a 65-foot Wooden Vessel in Gig Harbor
Here’s a guest blog post from The Harbor History Museum in Gig Harbor:
The second phase of restoration for historic wooden vessel Shenandoah began in Gig Harbor last month. The 65-foot purse seiner was owned by Tony Janovich, who donated it to the Harbor History Museum in 2000, shortly after his retirement.
The Shenandoah was built in 1925 at the Skansie Ship Building Company in Gig Harbor for Pasco Dorotich, a pioneer Gig Harbor fishing boat owner and skipper. She was operated almost exclusively at the Salmon Banks in the San Juan Islands. She also made several trips to Alaska. Pasco’s son, John, took over operations in the 1930’s.
Tony Janovich purchased the Shenandoah from the Dorotich estate in 1967 and operated the vessel for the next 32 years. He made many improvements and additions during his ownership. Longtime local shipwright Hugh Denny did much of the the work on the project. New bulwarks were added by Henry Moller at the Skansie Shipyard a few years later.
In 2003, the Shenandoah was pulled from the water. During 2007 and 2008, stabilization of the interior and hull was completed through a Washington State Capital Projects Heritage Grant.
The Harbor History Museum received an additional heritage grant in 2009 to begin restoration. Phase one started October, 2011 and included fitting out the workshop; installing a staircase, boardwalk, safety rails, and scaffolding; training a volunteer crew in wooden boat building skills; removal of decking; replacing deck beams to the fish hold; addressing sistered framing; and creating deck access points.
The current phase began in October, 2012. Shipwright Nate Slater and a crew of volunteers and apprentices started to repair the aft deck and sections of the hull. The crew will repair the vessel with the same types of wood it was originally built with: Douglas fir, ironbark, white oak, and Alaskan cedar. They will also use traditional wooden boat building techniques under the leadership of Slater. The crew is currently working on the horseshoe (stern). Slater welcomes volunteers of all skill levels and experience to participate in this community project.
“This project is unique because normally on a restoration like this, the volunteers would be cleaning up, not doing work directly on the boat,” Slater said.
Along with the restoration, the museum is developing a variety of interactive activities in the Maritime Gallery that relate to the commercial fishing industry and wooden boat building. There are currently four hands-on activities in the gallery that tie together the Shenandoah, the history of the harbor, and the restoration. The interactive programming is funded by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Pierce County.
The Maritime Gallery is open to the public, and restoration work of the Shenandoah can be viewed Saturdays from 10am-1pm. The museum is located at 4121 Harborview Drive, Gig Harbor, Washington, 98332. For more information and updates on the restoration, volunteer opportunities, tours, and workshops, visit http://www.harborhistorymuseum.org/programs/shenandoah-project, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HHMShenandoah.
Share your art with boat lovers far and wide
37th Annual Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival Art Competition Now Underway!! Starting October, 2012
Maritime heritage is woven into our tapestry of life. It is the unconquered realm which has drawn from us the best in art, craftsmanship, engineering, music, literature and quest for adventure. This is what we strive to capture with the annual Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival.
At the Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival we celebrate heritage wooden boats. We celebrate the people who make them. We take people out on the water in them. Everything is fun, almost everything is free and nothing much is fancy. It’s as authentically grassroots American as you can get and has been for the past 36 years.
The 2013 Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival will take place from July 4 – 7 at Lake Union Park and The Center for Wooden Boats.
“The Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival is one of the best family entertainment values in the Seattle area for the 4th of July weekend,” said Eldon Tam, Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival coordinator. “The Festival is one of the few hands-on maritime festivals where visitors can learn to caulk a seam, how to rivet a plank to a frame, try out a classic skiff on the water or tour a classic Northwest wooden vessel that’s been lovingly restored.”
Anyone is welcome to submit an entry. Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of judges consisting of CWB staff and volunteers. Artists are asked to interpret the themes of the Festival and capture the essence of this beloved annual event. Each year we strive to select an artist who is able to portray the LUWBF in the most authentic way while presenting the event as a simultaneously timeless and modern festival. This is what the team of judges will consider when selecting the finalist.
For inspiration and to see past Festival posters, please visit http://cwb.org/content/cwb-posters.
The winning artist may be given feedback by the selection committee while in the completion process. Therefore, applicants MUST be willing to alter their design based on recommendations from the committee. The finished art will be used on Festival posters, postcards, t-shirts and for advertising and branding purposes. Therefore, the art should be both visually appealing as well as attention-grabbing, and the artist and committee will work together to achieve this goal. Please be aware that once the art is complete, text and sponsor logos will be added by someone other than the artist to transform the artwork into the final Festival Poster.
New Boatwright-In-Residence Program Launched
The Center for Wooden Boats has launched a “Boatwright-In-Residence” program at CWB at Cama Beach and is partnering with Northwest Seaport on launching the same program at Lake Union Park. “Getting that first job out of school is daunting in any industry, so we’re pleased to work with our partners at Northwest Seaport to create this new opportunity for recent marine carpentry graduates,” CWB Executive Director Betsy Davis noted.
Allen Fletcher, who recently graduated from the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Hadlock, Washington, is filling the 10-week residency at Cama Beach State Park this fall. Allen said he is “excited about the opportunity to work on cool historic boats.”
At Lake Union Park, the Boatwright-in-Residence, Christine Jacobsen, will gain experience working both on the large, heavily-planked historic vessels at Northwest Seaport, such as the 1889 tugboat Arthur Foss, and also on the small boats at CWB. Christine will live aboard the Arthur Foss and work closely with experienced shipwrights as she continues learning the trade and prepares for the transition to the job market.
Otto Loggers, Northwest Seaport Executive Director, observed that “Northwest Seaport is excited to help launch this program as it helps contribute to developing the individuals’ repertoire of job skills and improves the condition of the Arthur Foss. It’s a win, win, win situation as we gain a skilled set of hands and the individual gains experience under the guidance of our shipwright.”
Learn more about Northwest Seaport.
Labor Day Racing at CWB Cama Beach was Such a Big Success We’re Already Thinking About Next Year!!
by Lawrence Baum, Camano Sail and Power
Labor Day weekend saw the beginning of yet another annual Camano Island tradition: Discover Sail Cam Isle 2012 co-sponsored by The Center for Wooden Boats and Camano Sail and Power. This event attracted small boat sailors and their families from around the Salish Sea area to two days of tightly contested dinghy sailing, schmoozing, family celebrations and just plain fun at Cama Beach State Park and The Center for Wooden Boats.
The winds were light and shifty, with a tidal current thrown in for good measure, thereby challenging the skippers and their crews to make the most out of every small wind shift and puff. The top sailors won not by being the fastest boats but by being the most patient and craftiest. The racing culminated in an closing dinner at Donna’s Cama Beach Center Cafe on Sunday evening where the opinion was unanimous that the event was a lot of fun and definitely worth doing in future years.
The Discover Sail Cam Isle 2012 committee and all of the sailors are very gratified at the level of support that the community provided to make this event happen. Special thanks to Washington State Parks (Jeff Wheeler, Camano Area Manager) for his help and encouragement, and to our Presenting Sponsor, Windermere Real Estate (Randy and Marla Heagle), who came on board early in the planning with a sizeable sponsorship donation that ensured that the event would happen. Many other businesses and individuals around the community also stepped in with sponsorships that enabled the event to provide the high-quality of service and enjoyment that guarantee that people will return to an event. Thank you to Pat and Rob at Les Schwab Tires; Carol and Ray at Pope Chiropractic; Lawrence at Camano Sail and Power; The Center for Wooden Boats; Lynn at Thistledew Graphics; Katie at Cabelas Outfitters; Michael and Carol Benecke of Camano; Bill Brown at South Whidbey Yacht Club; Donna’s Cama Cafe; and Shannon at Skagit Regional Clinics. Everyone appreciated and enjoyed the Camano Island Fire And Rescue boat and all of the firemen who were on duty during all of the races to provide emergency rescue and medical services. Thank you, Guys.
So, small boat sailors: do not despair because you missed 2012. This event will be back in 2013, Labor Day Weekend at Cama, bigger and better, with more competitors, more fun, and another chance for you to cross swords (in a friendly fashion of course) with like-minded small boat sailors. Plans are afoot to expand it to a full-blown Small Boat Festival with displays of handcrafted wooden boats, rowing and paddling races and exhibitions.
For more information about this event and activities at The Center for Wooden Boats at Cama Beach State Park, call John Dean, Manager, (425) 293-7575 or send him an e-mail at jdean@cwb.org
Relaxing at Cama Beach : Photo by Greg Gilbert
Breakfast for Boats Raises $34,000+
Last week, The Center for Wooden Boats held the second annual Breakfast for Boats fundraising event bright and early at the REI Flagship Store in South Lake Union. The bacon, quiche and coffee were gobbled up as attendees heard from a number of CWB staff and volunteers, and David Moseley, the head of the Washington State Ferry System. They also learned how to tie a reef knot from Youth Programs Manager, Captain Tyson Trudel. We’re delighted to announce that we raised $34,406.00 at the event, and the donations are still coming in! This is an incredible increase over the first year of the event, and we couldn’t have done it without the help of board members, volunteers, table captains and over 150 supporters who attended the event.
As Jim Compton explained, the money raised is “stretched” at CWB by our crew of volunteers, who teach sailing lessons, work on our boats, answer our phones, guide our visitors, and even served food and cleared plates at the Breakfast. It was also stretched by our generous Leadership Gift donors, who provided the matching money for donations $250 and above. Those Leadership Gifts have been vital to our success, as we’ve seen many donations that were going to be $100, but were then crossed out and increased to $250 due to the matching funds donated prior to October 4th.
This support means that more kids can build toy boats, more families can learn to sail together, and more teenagers can find their bearings in our Job Skills Program. Together, we create builders, sailors, and captains. This is no small feat, and the impact of that creation ripples throughout our region. Like our Founding Director, Dick Wagner, often says: “It’s about the people, not the boats.”
If you attended the Breakfast, thank you for supporting CWB and making everything we do possible. If you missed the event, make sure to mark your calendar for early October next year, because we plan to make this an annual event. If you’d like to see what you missed, you can see a portfolio of images from the morning on volunteer photographer Mitch Reinitz’s website.
You can also watch the videos that were shown at the event on The Center for Wooden Boats’ YouTube Page:
Tom & Debbie: Toy Boat Building at CWB
Troy Joey & The Job Skills Program at CWB
Thank you for helping us change lives, one boat at a time.
Also, a special thank you to our sponsors, REI, Preg O’Donnell & Gillett, Vulcan, and Portage Bay Cafe, for supporting this event.
Successful first eBoat Showcase at The Center for Wooden Boats
September 25, 2012, (South Lake Union, Seattle) Volunteers once again rocked The Center for Wooden Boats on Sunday September 23rd and made sure our first Electric Boat Showcase was a great success. In all twenty-four CWB volunteers worked tirelessly with visitors and exhibitors to help create an enjoyable and informative experience for all. This was an all-volunteer led, organized and executed event, and all those who took part should be very proud and pleased with their accomplishment.
By rough estimates, about 150 visitors came specifically because they were interested in electric boats. Several other visitors commented that because of the showcase they NOW were interested in electric boats.
Approximately 90 Sunday visitors opted to go for a ride in CWB’s electric boats, Dora and Terry Pettus, for their free CastOff! Public Sail experience, even though the electric boat rides were shorter in time to accommodate the maximum number of interested visitors.
All of the commercial exhibitors expressed enthusiasm and said they would love it if CWB decided to hold the event again next year. The CWB team will talk with sponsors of National Plug-In Day, which also happened Sunday, and with the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association to see if they might want to hold a joint event next year with electric cars and bicycles on the land, and eBoats in the water.
The Exhibitors
In all we had nine visiting electric boats for the day and several commercial eBoat vendors including:
The Electric Boat Company, showing three Duffy Electric Yachts.
Geoff Gamsby, Lake Union Charters/Electric Yachts showing his 30-foot Columbia electric auxiliary sailing yacht conversion.
CWB Member Joe Grez, Propele Electric Boat Motor Co. showing their Electric Paddle line on three small boats, and their electric outboard conversion on Sweet Pea.
Joe Lawton, a private individual who brought his 15.5-foot electric fantail launch, JODI III, from Cottage Grove, Oregon.
Edison Marine’s Steve Shovoly represented his company’s twin electric-motored mahogany runabouts, capable of speeds of over 30 mph.
CWB visiting vessel owner Sarah Howell represented Torqeedo electric outboards as shown aboard her marvelous sailing vessel, Gemini.
ELCO—the Electric Launch Company—builders of the 1893 predecessor of CWB’s Dora was represented by the company literature.
More Info
Links to history of EVs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle – History
http://www.seattleeva.org/wiki/History
For current news of EVs
